Home of the VirtualHUD

Wingman Owner Support!

Thank you for purchasing the VirtualHUD Wingman. My name is William J. Steele, I am the founder of VirtualHUD. We’re excited to be entering the General Aviation market place with this exciting new product.

Please check your version number. We have recently released a new version of the firmware that improves the magnetic variation for the heading as well as adjusts the battery level thresholds. The current firmware version is 1.2.1053. If you have a previous version, please click HERE to download the latest Firmware for your Wingman.

Once you have downloaded the installer (which requires the Microsoft .NET 3.5 Framework), double click it to launch it and run the setup wizard. This will install the utility on to your computer. After you install the utility, you can run it directly from your start menu. (Note, you must remove any previous version of the update utility before proceeding.)

If you are using the installer on a Windows XP Computer, you will need to install the USB Driver for the Wingman in order to update it. You can download the USB Driver Installation Utility by clicking this.

We are currently working on a new attitude estimate algorithm that will significantly enhance the ability of the Wingman to correctly estimate your current attitude. We expect to release that code as soon as flight testing is completed.

IMPORTANT: You must charge your unit for a minimum of two hours before using the unit to ensure that you have sufficient power in the event of an unexpected power loss. Also, to insure accurate attitude estimates, make sure that the Wingman has acquired at least five satellites before flying. Before your first flight, it is necessary to take the Wingman outside and let it acquire its initial position using a built in GPS Scan algorithm. Please note that this process might take up to two hours.

Download the Wingman Quick Reference Manual here: Wingman QRM (Adobe PDF)

We feel that we are really breaking new territory with the Wingman and would love to involve you in our future decisions. Please tell us what you think of the Wingman, good or bad, so we can continue to improve the design and function to meet your needs.

I’m excited to tell you that your purchase is not the end of this transaction; in fact, we designed the Wingman to make it a continuing endeavor. With the Wingman, we’ve designed in lots of expansion capabilities and will, over the coming months, publish new “firmware” that can be installed on the Wingman to enhance its capabilities beyond the product you’ve purchased today. />

The Wingman optionally connects to your handheld GPS via a standard RS-232 Serial Interface cable and allows the pilot to plan their flight details with their GPS and have that information automatically transfered to the Wingman so it can guide you to your distination. In order to enable the GPS Highway in the Sky integration feature, you will need to acquire the appropraite GPS to Wingman integration cable.* We can provide you with the schematics to integrate into a standard GPS and can optionally modify your "power/data bare wire" cable for the specific model of GPS that you have.

In addition, to enable the software features for the integration, you will need to update the firmware on your unit by downloading our firmware update utility. Updating the unit requires a special programmer adapter for your Wingman. To receive your programming adapter, simply send us an e-mail to register@virtualhud.com with your serial number and mailing address. Limit one free programmer per serial number. (Additional programmers can be purchased for $29.95.) Included with your programming cable will be the software required to update to the latest firmware.

Lastly, the data connector on the back of the Wingman is a multi-purpose connector. Do NOT directly connect a GPS directly to the connector without confirming that only pins 2 and 3 are used and that no other pins are connected. In addition, the data connector on the Wingman is designed for TTL RS-232 levels. Connecting it to a non TTL based RS-232 device could damage the Wingman or the other device. All data cables produced by VirtualHUD will have built in level logic conversion.

Here are the pinouts for the data/power connector on the back of the Wingman unit. Before connecting any device, make sure you have the correct voltage levels or you can damage the Wingman or the GPS.

Wingman Pinout Diagram

If you have any troubles with your Wingman, please feel free to contact us via phone or e-mail. Our office phone number is 812-539-2846 and our support e-mail is support@virtualhud.com.

(*Note: Most GPS vendors provide an optional GPS NMEA Interface cable. VirtualHUD will modify that cable to support the VirtualHUD Wingman and your GPS with a single power adapter, reducing the cable count in your aircraft to the minimum needed. Contact us for details at info@virtualhud.com .)